One of the women who had been noted for her flaming red hair when she was younger was a born mother and became the boy's caretaker.

Her soft low voice called him endearing names and he dreamed that his mother had come to him and that she had changed so that she was always as she had been that time after he ran away.

The man who had proclaimed himself the only true servant of God in all the valley of Wine Creek, and who had wanted God to send him a sign of approval by way of a son out of the womb of Kather- ine, began to think that at last his prayers had been answered.

There were two influences at work in Jesse Bent- ley and all his life his mind had been a battleground for these influences.

He had grown into maturity in America in the years after the Civil War and he, like all men of his time, had been touched by the deep influences that were at work in the country during those years when modem industrial- ism was being born.

The kindly attitude of all about him expanded his quiet nature and he lost the half timid, hesitating manner he had always had with his people.

From the windows of his own room he could not see directly into the barnyard where the farm hands had now all assembled to do the morning shores, but he could hear the voices of the men and the neighing of the horses.

More and more every day now his mind turned back again to the dreams that had filled his mind when he had first come out of the city to live on the land.

All the afternoon Jesse had been in a medita- tive mood and now he began to talk.

Into the old man's mind had come the notion that now he could bring from God a word or a sign out of the sky, that the pres- ence of the boy and man on their knees in some lonely spot in the forest would make the miracle he had been waiting for almost inevitable.

Taking the boy rather roughly by the shoulder, he climbed over a fallen log and when he had come to an open place among the trees he dropped upon his knees and began to pray in a loud voice.

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